Compile FFmpeg on Ubuntu, Debian, or Mint

Contents

This guide for supported releases of Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint will provide a local install of the latest FFmpeg tools and libraries including several external encoding and decoding libraries (codecs). This will not provide a system installation and therefore will not interfere with anything such as repository packages. Recent ​static builds are also available for lazy people or those who are unable to compile.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid users will need to install the git-core package instead of the git package. Lucid lacks the package libva-dev. This can be ignored.

Compilation & Installation

One advantage to compiling is that you can build ffmpeg to your liking. If you do not require certain encoders you may skip the relevant section and then remove the appropriate ./configure option in FFmpeg. For example, if libopus is not needed, then skip that section and then remove --enable-libopus from the Install FFmpeg section.

Yasm

Yasm is an assembler used by x264 and FFmpeg.

Ubuntu 13.04 and Mint 15 users can alternatively install the yasm package from the repository instead of compiling.